1. Fields of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for playing a dice game for at least two players, and, more particularly, to a game that uses six identical dice in which the letter or each of six faces of each die spells a six lettered word or has a different one of six different colors and scoring for the game is based on pre-assigned point values for each letter or color or combinations thereof.
2. Discussion of Background and Prior Art
Chance and casino type dice games are well known.
Inventors Van R. and Maxine Goodman in U.S. Pat. No. 4,930,780 ("Goodman") disclosed a dice game played by two or more players with six ordinary dice in which there are three stages of the game. In the first stage of the game, each player throws the dice in turn and must both exceed a predetermined threshold and the prior player's score by a predetermined amount in order to enter a second stage of the game in which players begin to accumulate points. A player must voluntarily surrender his turn while still accumulating points in order for any accumulated points to be recorded as part of the player's score. If a player failed to score any points on a given throw, he loses his turn as well as any points accumulated during that turn. The final stage of the game occurs when one player reaches a predetermined high score, and the remaining players take their turn in sequence to try to exceed this score to win.
The method of the present invention distinguishes over the Goodman invention by not requiring a player to exceed the score of the previous player by a predetermined number of points to begin accumulating points and by using dice which include letters of the same six lettered word or one of six different colors.
Game apparatuses which use dice that comprise the letters of a six-lettered word placed on the faces of each die have also been known prior to the present invention. In U.S. Pat. No. 1,412,204, the inventor Lee M. Derby discloses a game apparatus comprising a set of six identical cubes with the faces of any one of the cubes having different letters which taken together in a certain order spell a complete word. The set of six dice may all be of one color. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,934,700, the inventor Alice N. Turek discloses a dice word game comprising twenty-four six-sided dice. Each side of each die is marked with a unique letter of a six-letter target word.
The present invention differs from the six letter word prior dice games in its simplified scoring method and in the use of six different colors or the particular six letter word CASINO.
Accordingly, it is another object of the present invention to provide a dice game which has a unique scoring system and which uses dice that bases scoring on the letters of a six-lettered word or colors.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a dice game apparatus and method in which the player is required to exceed a predetermined point threshold, but not the score of the previous player in order to accumulate points.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide more fun to the players by having them make more risk-taking decisions during the play of the game.